The Eternal Supernova Theory
by ImpossibleImpact
Summary: Because what do you get when you plop a young, mutant Night Nurse with abandonment issues down into the superhuman emotional wrecks of the X-Men and Avengers? Chaos. Absolute and utter chaos.
1. Outlaw Weapon With A Golden Opportunity

She let her head mold against the head of her seat, her body groggily pulsing from the soporific plod of the train's lumber over the tracks below. Clattering glass chimed up an octave in tandem with each track, as the pushcart slowly made its way up the aisle. Gentle notes of voices would respond to the glassware's echo, and the two continued to converse amicably as the train neared its next station. Beyond her window contorted together in different pale yellows, striking scarlets and popping green hues, autumn gracefully stippling New York's rolling hills. The colors seemed almost alive, and it unsettled her stomach to see something so vibrant, such a far cry from the dusty grey's and lonely browns she awoke to every morning. She pulled the jacket tighter around her body, relishing in the way the new leather restricted her movements.

To say she was a nervous was so great an understatement, it was almost a lie. She didn't belong on a train, sitting amongst business men and women leaving behind work in the city in crisp suits, college students enjoying a weekend off campus, teachers herding groups of school kids on their field trip. She was like fool's gold floating in an inundated deposit of the real yellowed treasure. Who was she kidding? _Them_? Certainly not herself. If only for the time being.

Was she going to be ok?

Her passion to help others may have brought her into the deepest of predicaments. But was it really a "predicament?" A predicament, a situation, almost had the vague, underlining sense of trouble, of something that should cause worry. _Should_ she be worried? If he was any indication of the rest of them, she shouldn't be.

He had been kind, and respectful, and had offered her an opportunity that had the consequence of being a saving grace for her.

_Come back with me. Join us. We could use someone like you on the team. _

Yeah. He had actually said that.

It was a corny recruiting motto, really. And an incredibly naïve belief. Nothing was ever simple, not in their line of work at least. Not in this lifetime, not in her shoes. And yet that casual arm cross, that lazy pinched smile beneath his mustard-color mask was making her second guess this infallible truth of armor she had strapped to her person.

He wasn't just interested in her abilities, her powers. He showed concern for _her_, a nobody. And that was why she was sitting on a train she couldn't afford, in new, clean clothes that disguised her as a young girl who belonged in this world, who _lived_ in this world, headed to a place he told her she was allowed to call home.

So where was the 'but'? Where was the clock hidden that would strike at midnight and change the train back into a pumpkin? Where was the poisoned apple she would inevitably bite, or the conch shell that would eventually house her voice? Why was she trembling like a leaf, waiting for the trap door in the floor to loosen and swallow her whole? Because his words were too good to be true. Because _something_ like this, _someone_ like that, didn't just drop into her life with an offer such as this one without a few ropes attached, shaped conveniently like nooses. There were conditions. There _had_ to be. He just wasn't telling her. Because what would a nobody like her have any business working with a group like them.

But that was just it; a group like them. This was _it_. This was the big leagues. He was legendary, a celebrity in his own right, and so were his colleagues. An opportunity like this didn't come around very often, especially to a nobody like her. The things she could do with them, the masses she could reach, the people she could save. She'd be selfish not to take it. Right?

She sighed again.

_What was she getting herself into?_

She knew nothing about this life she was walking back into, hadn't been a part of it for years now. She had remained chained to the streets while the world had changed and morphed around her. How was she sitting so casually on a train, headed to a station, wearing new clothes, rested from a mattressed-sleep, full from a breakfast, completely blasé? She didn't belong here. She was a fraud. An. Imposter. And worse, someone was going to call her bluff. She couldn't keep this kind of act up forever. Why did she think that because she had done it years ago, she was qualified to walk the walk, talk the talk, and think she could pass off?

She perked up at the sound of a warbling voice as it crackled through the overhead speakers, catching only the words **North Salem** before the intercom faded as waves of bustling surrounded her. Bags were grabbed from below seats and over heads, fogged windows were wiped furiously with little rounded fingers. They had reached their destination. They were starting a new adventure, for the day, for the weekend, for the month. She was starting off a new life, maybe for the rest of her life. And all she got for an introduction were the marbled-mouthed words that plopped out of the static speaker above her head.

No trumpets, no fan-fare, no confetti.

North Salem.

Here we go.

* * *

He watched the throngs of passengers exiting quickly out of the train doors, scanning the crowds for a face he had memorized now. He stuck out oddly. At first glance, it wasn't easy to distinguish why. His flared and frayed denim and worn leather jacket were attractively conspicuous, but not out-of-place. Even his imposing size could just be written off as a dedicated gym goer. But yet something made heads turn a second time, made eyes squint with suspicion. _Who was this man?_ How could he blend in so well with the traffic of the downtown station, and yet stand resolute with the look of a mind and a body touched with something just a little more fantastic than the hamster-wheel of a life everyone else seemed to be trapped on?

"I don't see her, Logan."

There was an affirmative grunt that she was heard, but his attention remained on the draining carts.

White hair slipped along her shoulder as she turned to look up at him, with a small, curious smile on her face.

_A new recruit. _

How long had it been since they had opened up their home to a new mutant? A few years now? And one that immediately had a spot on the team? Only a few mutants had had that opportunity when the institute had first started up. Once their small out-reach group had been outed and eventually graduated from Bayville, the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters was no longer just a boarding house; it had officially become a boarding school and Bayville never saw another X-Man again.

Without the professor, though, it seemed almost insulting to open the institute back up with the intent of teaching and housing young mutants once more. The institute had been Charles's dream, though they had all adopted it over time watching children grow free from the judgement of the world. They had discussed it as a team when they had first reached out to Warren to help fund the rebuilding of the mansion off the books and under the radar. Warren's contractors needed finalized plans and the team had not yet given their final consent on whether they should open the mansion back up to housing children.

The vote had been unanimously bittersweet; the institute had already gained enough publicity back when their students at Bayville had been outed, and the Phoenix explosion had sealed the address's permanent fate on the MRD and Senator Kelly's watch list. They all understood the danger of bringing young children back onto the property, reconstructing the towering edifice of Charles's estate. They couldn't guarantee their safety like the Professor had been able to do years ago to hesitant parents. Tildie had been the only exception because she had no one left.

But the vote hadn't been without strong nostalgia of the days they had all been welcomed into the institute and how much it had changed their life, and strong regret that the institute would never be able to do that for anyone else. The anti-mutant hysteria was growing with each day, and young mutants needed a place of refuge now more than ever. But with somber nods, the vote was sealed and the mansion's original classrooms, student bedrooms, recreational areas, music rooms and multiple sport fields were removed from the plans. Now the mansion was. Efficient, blending in with the other up-scale estates on their street. It served a small team of adults that was always on the move and still required their own space in their down time. But it felt larger somehow. Emptier. Colder. An insult to the warm and welcoming home it had been before.

But as Ororo watched with fondness as Logan surveyed the station for the X-Men's newest member, she wondered if it was truly the new layout of the mansion that made it a hollow husk of its former glory, or if there was a slight possibility that it was the habitants inside. There was no more laughter, no more shouts from the fields, no more chatter in the kitchen, no more ambient noise that settled in the rafters like sweet honey. The X-Men operated as a team, and that was that. Once the capes were hung and the suits were gathered for the laundry (or trash if it was one of _those_ missions) everyone scattered. And the mansion echoed the silence.

Ororo wondered to herself if the young girl would be the one to finally break the insufferable quiet, while Logan beside had slipped into a reverie of a few nights prior to.

_He ran across the wet pavement, his feet dashing across the already forming puddles. The beating rain made his tight suit cling to his large body, rippled and edged masterfully with muscles earned from heavy training and the glorious heat of battle. His steady breathing produced small puffs of white fog that clung to the damp air with a vengeance. His nerves danced with excitement, as he peered behind him to watch as they drew nearer. He could hear the loud, monotonous footsteps of his pursuers, already multiplying as his enhanced hearing picked up the screech of another vehicle that had joined in on the chase. He grinned mischievously as the click of the triggers of their weapons echoed across the almost deserted neighborhood._

_He wasn't afraid. To say he had gone out that night looking for a reason to run, a reason to feel the excruciating, heated pain of his metallic claws sheath from his dense knuckles was probably not all that wrong. On a stormy night like tonight, no one would be out on the streets. No mutants at least. That means he had their full and undivided attention. Perfect. And the fact that they had come extra prepared that night, equipped with a holding cell and everything, its extra weight on the vehicle's wheels chiming in his ear, made him all the cockier._

_The X-Men leader even gave his chasers a moment to catch up, standing idly in the street, smirking confidently as the uniformed men circled him on all sides, their hauntingly black glasses staring the mutant down. All weapons were trained simultaneously on the wanted convict, as said offender continued to smirk with raw arrogance._

_"Took you guys long enough," Wolverine called out smugly, brashly rolling and popping shoulder sockets. "Kelly's really pickin' the best and the brightest for his Mardy squads" watching, amused, as one of the soldiers actually began to shake, the former Weapon-X smiling at the smell of fear that reeked from the rookie's body._

_"Surrender now and we won't hurt you!" one called out from the crowd of MRD soldiers, his voice almost muffled by the pouring rain._

_"Funny thing, Bub," Wolverine said, smiling at the satisfying sound of his claws slicing through his skin and embracing the fresh, damp air, "I was going to tell you the same thing."_

_And without a moment's hesitation, the former Weapon-X was off, jumping first for the rookie, quickly knocking him out with a roundhouse kick. Grabbing the shoulders of the now unconscious lackey, he swung the body in a circle, brutally clobbering the soldier's heavy boots into any surrounding MRD recruits. Animal instinct kicked in as he quickly completed a back flip, narrowly dodging a series of blasts that had erupted from a nearby weapon. He swiftly fist punched a soldier feet from where he landed, grinning as their nose broke with a clean crack beneath his fingers. He grabbed the weapon from his hand and began shooting at the fast approaching group of fighters, his mouth cocked in a supercilious smile._

_He was having a blast._

_Though the men were heavily protected, the force from the blasts of his newly acquired gun alone knocked most of them off of their feet, leaving the haughty Logan with a few more stragglers, before they would be calling in aerial reinforcements._

_He was already imagining his proud walk back home to the mansion and the glass of ice-cold beer when his eyes widened in confusion at a sudden and devastatingly sharp pain that had erupted right in the center of his chest. He quickly turned his attention to find a soldier pointing a gun straight at him, the barrel still relishing in the smoke of its bullet's exit._

_"So that's how it's going to be. You're going to be sorry –" But Wolverine's speech was cut off abruptly as his world suddenly shifted out of focus, the atmosphere around him tipping like an uneven see-saw and the edges of his vision clouding over with bright lights._

_He weakly turned down to look at where the blast had hit him, expecting to see an already healing scorch mark across his rib cage. But he was caught off-guard to find a small vile of some kind, it's needle surprisingly able to make it through his infamously dense skin. He roughly pulled the contraption out, but looked distraught at the empty vile; the damage had already been done. The cocky leader was only aware of a few type of sedation needles the MRD used, none of them able to pierce his skin deep enough to make it into his blood vessels. So what was this?_

_He glanced back up to find his vision had become even fuzzier, the MRD vehicles and the buildings behind them swirling together like a finger painting. He cringed as his weak legs suddenly crumpled, forcing the mutant down on his hands and knees. He could vaguely hear the footsteps of approaching Mardy's, their numbers slowly but steadily increasing._

_He was screwed._

_A flash of golden light suddenly danced across his line of vision. There came a series of panicked yells and screams, as the bright light popped into his vision a few more times before settling before him. And that's when limbs had unceremoniously given out, his fevered body sinking into chilled puddles with glazed eyes settled on brilliant ice blue irises as his world faded out._

The corner of his mouth tilted ever so slightly upward when those same chilled azure eyes settled on his once more, a lean face smiling radiantly in return. Ororo watched with interest as the young girl approached, slight confusion piqued momentarily to find her without luggage or belongings, until Logan's terse clippings returned to her from the previous night, Hank prodding away at his leader atop his medial bench. The scientist was looking desperately for a sample of the concoction, going about the proceedings as if it was locked away deep in Logan's reservoir of blood.

_The Shadow Healer's no vigilante. She's just a damn kid, Ororo. A kid. She looks like she should still be taking the bus to school. And she's homeless. The kid's got nobody and nothing. Just the clothes on her back. Looks half starved. And in this weather. I can't just leave her like that. I can't just walk away. _

He had been restless since that night, prowling about the house, searching shadows for answers, until she had finally called him back. The relief on his face had been clear as day. And there was an ease about him now, standing before her, that reflected a lifetime of acquaintance they had garnered in a matter of hours. Ororo was very intrigued.

He nodded in greeting. "Hey, kid." Her smile grew wider in return, though her hands continued to wring nervously at the water bottle in her grip. "Safe trip?"

She nodded, and right in that moment, Ororo's stomach bottomed out, and every fiber of her being wanted nothing more to wrap the young girl protectively in her embrace and never let her go. Her eyes so defiantly betrayed the age her body seemed to announce, aided with her impeccable posture and the dark jeans and leather jacket she wore so well. They were the eyes of a child, so young and innocent. Had it not been months ago when dozens of pairs of those same eyes had been laughing and bouncing about the mansion?

_This_ was the Shadow Healer.

The renowned night healer New York had seemed to almost immediately fall head over heels for, and subsequently adopted as their mascot. The mythical superheroine that was the talk within all circles, domestic and otherwise. She was dominating fan-pages, conspiracy cites, even gracing the occasional news outlet.

And she was just a girl.

"Yeah, it was ok," voice easy but finger straight with accusation at Logan, "And don't you dare call me kid again."

* * *

She smudged the condensation cloud with her thumb, checking the empty street once again for their black off-roader. Her neck lazily swiveled about, letting a set of loosened pops echo in the hallway, giving a half-interested glance along the second floor and the visible portion of the first. "Where is everybody, anyway? I thought they'd all be here to check the newbie out."

He yawned, impatiently tapping chilled fingers along his kneecap.

"Scott and Jean are out by the water, and I _really _don't want to know what they're doing. Forge's coddling the jet, Hank's in the zone, Tildie's watching cartoons with Ororo and Kurt is probably off somewhere moping like a big baby," he rattled off.

Man, was he bored. Ororo _had_ to be driving. There was no way with his daredevil speed that Logan was still out on the road.

She scowled at him, jabbing her toes at his. "Come on, you can't blame him for wanting some alone time. Take it easy on him."

He threw his hands up, almost imperceptible trails of frost dancing along the air in his wake. "Hey, he went and fell head over tail for Magneto's daughter. We all warned him about what he was getting himself into."

"Bobby, she almost _killed_ him! None of us saw that coming," Kitty chided.

The eldest Drake scoffed, arms crossed. "Are you kidding me? I totally called that scenario. Either that, or she'd have Lorna cook him up on a homemade frying pan and feed him to Toad."

He was answered with a jab of Kitty's heel to his shin, yelping in pain and surprise.

"Hey!?" he whined, rubbing at his leg. "We were all thinking it," he added petulantly more quietly.

"I swear with your manners, Rogue's on-off status, Scott and Jean's 'I love you I hate you' relationship, Tildie's destructive nightmares and Logan's temper, I can't imagine anyone who would want to stay here. I don't even know why _we're_ still here! Mansion explodes for the second time and we're like _sure, who wouldn't want back in on that shit show_."

Bobby snorted, though there was no humor on his face, eyes on the world outside. "You clearly haven't met my family. This was a step up."

Kitty continued over his comment, arms crossed, eyebrows creased in skepticism. "And since when did Logan start adopting street kids? Last I checked, he hates kids. Like period. Since the beginning of time."

A finger reached out to prod absentmindedly at the window pane, leaving trails of frost in its wake. "And only a month after Frost became snowflakes all over 9th. Papa Wolf's trying to fill a hole in his pack," he joked.

But Kitty looked at him with intrigue, mulling over his words with more thought than he had. "You think that's what he's doing?"

A shrug, and the ice dusting growing thicker along the glass. "Who knows. This is The Wolverine we're talking about. Dude's an animal."

But the young Pryde wasn't satisfied. Something about Bobby's comment left her pondering only more.

Did the team feel that much emptier without the White Queen? Did her absence really beg for a replacement? Or was it the hole left by a certain Southerner with white highlights? Was he actually trying to replace someone at all?

_Because, let's be honest here, this was Logan they were talking about_. The very man that, for the very reason the Shadow Healer even left the safety of the shadows, went cruising for a bruising with the MRD just for fun.

Did he actually miss anything? "But why her? We have business cards just for instances like this. If the world's in danger, we'll call yah. We don't take in kids. Not anymore. Why are we making an exception for her?"

Bobby gave her a knowing look, eyes and smirk dipped with jest that was looking for trouble. "Jealous?"

She glared him down, before turning her bored stare back to their private cul-de-sac. "No. Just like totally confused."

* * *

He stepped out of the medical laboratory, easing the weighted door closed, tensing as the medical-grade plastic seal slipped together, a gun shot in the empty lab. He chanced a quick glance back and sighed with relief when the occupant didn't stir. A large, blue-furred hand rose heavily to his face, pushing his thin-rimmed glasses further up his nose, bleary eyes turning back to the loaded clipboard clenched in the tips of his fingers. Numbers and graphs blurred to a rhythm his glasses couldn't rewrite for his tired eyes, and in these sporadic but plentiful moments when the universe dealt the X-Men a few low-scoring cards, he wished the PhD at the end of his name was earned in medicine. Results he could read, conclusions he could try and procure, but clinical care he wasn't capable of doing.

He wasn't entirely useless. He could watch a concussion, treat a mild burn, ice bruises; anything that didn't require a medical degree and was easily found on the internet or in his library of textbooks floors above him. She needed a medical professional, and unfortunately, possibly more support than what their on-call Night Nurse could offer.

A cleared throat pierced his haze, and he all but jumped at the sight of people in his lab, a space not often frequented.

"Everything go ok, Hank?"

He must've looked like a dazed deer, Logan giving a groveled snort when Hank pivoted to his voice. The blue mutant ran a hand through his equally colored locks and heaved a heavy sigh.

"I performed a mandatory physical of sorts," he started, walking over to his cluttered desk, swatting a few notebooks off the keyboard to bring up the notes he had taken in their med room. He cursed at the circling loading icon. "She fell asleep rather quickly, probably from the long day of traveling, so I got basic but modified visual exam and a complete metabolic panel. But there's still so much more she needs done. She needs a full visual and physical exam, a lipid panel, thyroid and diabetes screening, maybe a few CT's for kicks; she could have organ damage from prolonged starvation. But that's just—I'm just scratching the surface. For the amount of time she's been…off the grid, so to speak, she requires more intensive care. At the very least, she needs a full screening for which vaccinations she had, and inoculate her with ones she doesn't. She also has an increased risk for asthma, iron deficiency, respiratory and ear infections, gastrointestinal problems, on top of the emotional toll of it all. A therapist wouldn't be a bad idea. A dietician as well; a specialized one. Depending on what her diet was like, she could be malnourished, vitamin-deficient and starved, leaving her at a high risk for refeeding syndrome."

The lab fell silent enough to hear a pin drop, and Hank cringed reflexively at how loud his voice must've been during what he embarrassingly conceded to was a ramble. The few X-Men gathered looked dazed at each other, the gravity of the task and the human being they had taken on finally applying its full weight in the pits of their stomachs.

Jean was the first to speak up, Hank with distant fondness reminiscing of the times she had sat in that same swivel chair, asking questions about her anatomy homework that a stiff textbook just couldn't provide. "How long has she been out on the streets?"

Another heavy sigh from the former teacher. "She didn't know until just before, when she asked what the date was. She estimates about 5 years."

Another bout of silence impregnated the room.

Ororo looked completely ashen and devastated when she turned Beast, eyes wide with sympathy. She had always been the bleeding heart of the predominantly adult male household. There would have been wild creatures for children running about the halls if she hadn't been a radiating source of motherly love beside the Professor. "Where's her family? Does she have any?"

It was Logan who replied, the only one upright amongst them, arms entangled with each other across his chest. "She wasn't willing to disclose that information."

Scott followed up with an almost immediate remark, Logan barely restraining an eye roll before the young Summers had barely started speaking. "Not willing to disclose—like 'hey I don't really want to talk about it right now' information or 'hey I'm a fugitive of the law because I killed some people' kind of information," arms releasing their grip on the desk edge below him to mimic a hold similar to Logan's. He turned his question to the young telepath beside him. "Did you get anything from her mind?"

Jean looked output, shaking her head, and Hank felt equal parts intrigued and fearful at the slight hint of awe in her voice. "No. Her mind is locked shut. Completely. A telepath must've taught her how to actively defend against other telepaths, and they taught her well."

A soundless guffaw echoed out of Cyclops throat, and Hank could all but watch warily as Logan's all too obvious irritation was bleeding out onto the floor. "So you're telling me we have some kid who's picture we've run through every electronic database out there, including the illegal ones, with no matches. Who's been living out on the streets for half a decade, literally a textbook definition of falling off the face of the earth. And now she's suddenly walking around the mansion with the keys!?" red-tinted glasses noticeably flickering.

The former Weapon-X had been finally pushed far enough over the edge, and all they could do was cling to their respective seats like life preservers as the primal Wolverine detracted his claws. "She saved my life, Summers, and she's got nowhere else to go," Logan coolly interjected, restraining himself from physical rounding on the young X-Man. His words were pivoting toward him just as effectively.

The young Summers lacked the restraint of the much older Howlett, and the hot-headed 24-year-old bled through, mentee turning on mentor with insecure defilement. "No offense, Logan, but you said the same thing about Rogue and she's been putting us through the ringer with her little Brotherhood escapades. What is up with you and abandoned kids, anyway?" he asked, getting up from his seat to address the X-Men leader. The last statement was a low and immature blow to the X-Men leader, a desperately-made tactic Hank knew Scott didn't try often, even with Logan. Something about the predicament was hitting too close to home and Hank was willing to bet his entire library upstairs that it started with _Emma_ and ended with _Frost_.

Logan was in Scott's face within seconds; the mighty Wolverine never backed down from a fight, verbal or otherwise. No matter how long he spent as their leader, that quality would never be bred out. And although it cost them the occasional festive dishware, Hank felt the trait more beneficial than harmful in the current societal atmosphere; he was willing to play the offensive. "In case you've forgotten, Summers, _you_ were an abandoned kid when Charles picked you up. We _all_ were," he growled out.

Ororo, bless her soul, was still ready to mother-hen at the drop of a hat, whatever the age: "What did you learn about her powers, Hank?" Ororo asked, Jean already tugging at her partner's shirt, leading him down back into his seat, because _no, they did not need another repeat of the pair's last fight_. He had just gotten his new lab back.

He gave one last, irritated punch to the 'enter' key before abandoning the still stalled computer screen and simply handing over his paper notes to their resident weather witch. "If she does possess healing capabilities, due to her numerous superficial and intrinsic wounds, she's limited to healing others only. She has a long list of mutant alterations, originating from something I'm deeply surprised the MRD have no record of," he explained, turning to Ororo, "Go to the 3rd page."

On the screen was a rough outline of the young mutant's body and skeletal form. However, right in the middle of her chest, was a ball of burning, white light, flashing warnings swarming to the anomaly like ravishing bees.

"What…is that?" Jean asked, the entire team staring wide-eyed at the scan.

"It's her _heart_," he exclaimed. "It's a form of energy source, itself. A _powerful_ one. The radiation and electromagnetic readings I gathered from it supersedes that of _any_ synthetic form of energy. I had to access NASA's data files to finally find something that mirrored the data," the scientist explained.

"And?" Logan asked, inwardly chuckling at the scientist's enthusiasm over their new house guest. Being a mutant required a breed more resilient against the restrictions of reality to intrigue the mind, than simply _extraordinary._

"It was the _Sun_. The thermal, radiant and electromagnetic readings from her heart perfectly match. I still can't comprehend how her body is in any way stable. Her heart appears to be freely circulating small pieces of this energy throughout her body, along with oxygenated blood, as if her very being depends on it. And on top of that, her body keeps the energy completely contained. Nothing seeps out into the surrounding atmosphere. Something of that power, just walking amongst us."

Logan gave an impressed whistle. "Incredible," Jean gasped.

"So what kind of power are we talking about here? Level 2? 3?" Scott asked, his voice still on edge as he sneaked glares over to his leader, who was seeming more intrigued than concerned over the revelation of some kind of burning star living beneath their roof.

"I don't know. She may not have any powers concerning this particular mutant adaptation and then again, she may have a whole other series of abilities," the scientist explained.

"When she was attacking the Mardy's the other night, she was glowing. Could that be from her heart?" Logan asked.

"It is a possibility," Hank replied.

The young Summers snapped and suddenly the subtle jabs at his leader were being missed. "Great. So we're caging a possible ticking time bomb that, for we all know, could be Senator Kelly or even Magneto's head honcho? You really out-did yourself this time, Logan."

"You know what, Summers, the door is always open. If you don't like it, no one's stopping you," the X-Men leader grumbled back. Cyclops stood up from his seat and stormed out of the control room, forcefully slamming the door behind him.

* * *

Her body ever begrudgingly climbed to consciousness, the heat of embarrassment already pink on her cheeks before her waking mind could even remember why.

Mr. McCoy had been looking over her scans, explaining something to her, and she remembered nothing else. She had fallen asleep.

But something about the numbing taste of the exhaustion that had gone breaking over her was strange. Foreign.

It didn't wail with a sharp tenor along stretched muscle fibers. Didn't weigh her bones into the ground. Didn't scratch fire along her head to embers only the dark world behind her eyes could cool.

It was a tired that stuffed cotton to her skull's elasticity limits. That sucked energy clean from her, like a swift blow to the ribs. Made her body ache to depths even her nerves didn't grace. Painted her limbs numb from her mind, so heavily it took too long for her to reason her wandering fingertips were playing for purchase with cotton sheets, not the unforgiving bench top as before.

Something was wrong.

The reality that she wasn't in the medical room felt like an unreal door slamming her mind back into place, and suddenly she was sitting up, a golden coat slipping into place around her.

She was scolding herself for being blind sighted so easily, buying right into their false sense of security, when her senses were hit with a pale gray that colored the walls in her vision, her fingertips hypnotized by seagull down she heard more than felt. She knew that now, could feel a chilly breeze now pulling out goose bumps along her arm.

She was in a furnished room, a _bedroom_ her mind supplied, with a ceiling that stretched for the sky, the windows and balcony door leading out to the setting ambers of the real one. The wood was a dark stain, a brew of rich coffee accenting the seagull gray walls, the white trim and crown-molding, and the faded azure of foggy dawns on the bed she was sitting on. The two sofas stretched out before the fire place. The empty frames along the jamb. The table runner along a …

It was a beautiful room, a palette calming to wake and rest to. It was untouched though, empty of everyday human use. Clean of a messy life. Whomever slept here rarely used it. Then came the question as to whom it belonged to; Dr. McCoy, Logan, Ororo, the red-head who looked at her with confusion just as she felt a telepath tap at her mind for entry, the tall man beside her with ruby glasses that did not hide a distrust pulled across his frown.

She really hoped she wasn't in his room.

But as she continued to stare at her surroundings, things were catching her attention and disrupting the calm of the room; the jacket she bought the other day hanging in the open armoire, the rest of her new outfit folded on the …'s stool; a glass of water, bottles of medication and what looked like an electric heating pad on the table beside her.

Her stuff was here. And no one else's.

Rapid-fire conclusions stirred her unsettled stomach into another violent frenzy, and she felt sticky bubbles float of her throat.

No.

Life didn't work like that.

_Fairy-tales_ worked like that.

Like in Lady in the Tramp, when Tramp saved the young baby, and suddenly he was wearing a collar and calling the Darling's his home. Just accepted in off the streets, fleas and all.

_That_ was a Disney movie. _This_ was the real world.

But a vicious ache reared its ugly head, roared its tempting roar, and suddenly she was sliding blissfully down assumptions and dreams of fantastic proportions.

This was her room.

Her stuff wouldn't be hanging here otherwise.

This was her room.

Her sheets.

Her pillows.

Her bed.

Her window seats.

Her chest and armoire and beauty stand and fireplace and couches and rugs and balcony and storm doors and curtains.

It was all hers.

She had a room, a place to call her own.

Not an abandoned apartment building, scheduled for demolition, accented with roaches and cobwebs and mold.

Not a warehouse, with security cameras that saw all except for the small corner with a wooden crate for a bed.

Not the storage closet of a restaurant that reeked of garlic powder, ginger and salty canned fish.

Not a back alley with slight roof overhang to stem the rain, her tarp dancing wildly with the wind, and her single coat in no way waterproof.

Not even the tops of skyscrapers, gravel flooring sometimes manageable, sometimes not.

Already she was retracting her previous suspicion, against her raging half that kept juxtaposing her thoughts to Lady and the Tramp; if these people were anything like Logan, the X-Men were very good people.

But what did she know about Logan?

He was the leader. Charles Xavier's mysterious disappearance from news reports and genetic conventions begged the question if Wolverine stepped in by choice or force.

What else did she know?

She had helped him with trouble he had gone actively seeking out.

But Wolverine was notoriously known for his physical displays of displeasure with the MRD.

He had metal for bones. Not encasing it, not reinforced by it; his bones were completely made of it.

And it was artificial. It wasn't a part of his mutation. She shivered at the thought of how that metal and come to find home within his body.

What _was_ a part of his mutation were the renowned retractable claws, the increased healing abilities (beyond levels she had ever seen before), the stagnated aging process, the enhanced senses.

Oh. And he was almost 200 years old.

That was exciting to find when she was healing him. She wouldn't have second guessed his age; his healing abilities were phenomenal. But when she was removing the serum, she came across those cells in his blood. The ones everyone had. They were the only things in his body that were able to collect his lifespan without being reprogrammed by his mutations.

The stories he could tell.

So. Yeah.

That was it. That's all she knew.

And yet when he handed her a Metro Q card with some clipped responses of feigned causality about joining the team, she actually considered it. 16 hours later of flipping the Q card between her clammy fingers found her in a cab staring out fogged glass.

Just. Like. That.

A broad-shouldered double century year old Edward Scissorhands hands her a train ticket to his secret mansion with the fairytale ending that briefly interrupted her stream of night-time terrors, and she just says yes.

Just. Like. That.

Maybe this was a hallucination. Or some sick telepath.

She'd wake up from what induced mental state she had fallen into with a killer headache tucked away beneath the…along the rooftop of…in her familiar clothes Dr. McCoy had not hesitated to take the moment she had slipped them off.

And promptly tossed into a garbage bag.

She had known they reeked to high Heaven, but nostalgia and the anxiousness in this strange new world of hers itched her fingers with a need to pull at the worn thread of that stained and battered hoodie.

She wished with all her being for familiarity. Reflecting on the massive size of the roof she was beneath was a daunting void that threatened to swallow her hole, so she steered clear.

She slowly gathered herself out of bed, skin ghosting against the oversized sweat suit Dr. McCoy had handed her in the entrance way of his lab.

It had been an awkward initial exchange, Logan obviously nervously uncertain the protocols of bringing a homeless kid into a giant mansion. _Do you feed them? They're probably hungry. But what do you feed someone who's eaten out of garbage cans for the past 6 years? Is chicken and vegetables too bland? Or is it too priveleged to assume it is? But what about a shower? Because they probably haven't recently. At least they smell like they haven't. Shower sounds good. But what about their clothes. You can't expect them to put them back on. Because they smell too. And they're really dirty. So they need new clothes. _

And it was the latter Logan ran with, leading her down to the pits of the X-Men's house where the walls changed from neutral yellow to a cold metal that incited… And then she was being steered to a calming wall of fur and lab coat that exuded such a … steel blue, the ache in her bones craved nothing more than to curl up into it and cry herself into a slumber powerful enough to send her back to far away land.

It was amusing to watch the X-Men leader visibly stutter with her in tow, putrid yellow-greens scratching at her nose like a heavy scent she could smell, failing to subtly convey to the stranger in the lab coat that she needed clothes.

When she looked up, there were stout fangs indenting smiling lips, full of warmth and understanding to levels she had never experienced. Then there was a padded hand with elongated nails in her view, and a voice like the tumbling low wind that would rattle shop windows in the winter was introducing itself.

_Hi, I'm Dr. Hank McCoy. Pleasure to finally meet you, Reagan. _

In his words, _coming_ from his voice, 'Reagan' almost sounded normal. Like it belonged to her. Like the name 'Reagan' had a face, with hair and eyes and a nose, and all of the other characteristics that came with being a living human.

And the way he said it. The same way Logan had said it when she introduced him to the girl beneath the hood and cap. As if the 'Shadow Healer' wasn't the real identity. It wasn't _her_ identity. That someone else awoke in the morning and fell asleep beneath the smog dusk at night. She didn't know yet if she liked that or not. For the time being, it would just continue to worm against her stomach and fill those philosophical thoughts that always gently disturbed her nights.

And bless Hank who was, in no offense to Logan, easier around her. He wasn't coiled tight with anxiety but loose and comfortable, handing her a recently warmed jumpsuit with a yellow X. Then he was taking note of her swollen shoulder, her slight limp and the scratch along her hairline, and was suddenly steering her down another labyrinth of hallways.

Suddenly there was a room with a shower that gloriously scorched her skin and soap that didn't smell and a hair brush that seemed to glide through her hair despite the nests of knots. She felt as if she changed on both a physical and emotional level. What felt like hours later, found her emerging from the cloud of heavy steam into another side room where she remembered nothing more but the warmth of the clothes she was in, the sweet scent of soap and the crisp linen pillow beneath her head.

Sliding out from the cotton sheets, thick socks slithered along wooden flooring to the cool October breeze, feet shivering at the feeling of the chilled marble of the balcony beneath her toes. The fresh air shocked her blood pumping, the fog of sleep swept swiftly from her mind.

She stared in awe at the scenery before her. Directly below her balcony was a large, stone patio below a wooden pergola, covered in rose vines, flowers retreating for the season. The green yard stretched out in rolling hills for at least 2 acres before suddenly dropping way to beautiful cliffs, right before a small stretch of beach, all over-looking a vast body of water.

This could not be for real.

She was dreaming.

She was drugged.

Her mind was being manipulated.

The method was not important. What she did know for certain was that this was not reality. A smelly, homeless teenager was not just scooped up off the streets and settled into Barbie's Dream House, complete with all of the accessories. She wasn't Annie, and this wasn't Oliver Warbucks's New York mansion.

So how did she get out of this?

If it was a telepath, they were powerful enough to somehow tap into her powers and learn her reading abilities along with the associations between hormonal emotions and their resulting colors. She hadn't come against someone of this caliber before, putting aside the very idea that they were somehow able to reach into her mind. He had taught her how to reach out mentally to him after placing the barriers. Worst comes to worst, she could somehow contact his own mental fields and send out a distress beacon.

If it was drugs…well they had to be some very good drugs. Everything was too realistic. The touches, smells and sounds her brain was registering were too intricate to be something drudged up from some induced stupor. So, high possibility it wasn't drugs. Though with chemical concoctions like the Hope Serum making it's rounds in the city, anything was possible.

"Isn't it beautiful?"

A lot of things happened all at once in such a train wreck of a moment, she would remember it for years to come. A shriek exploded from her, feet propelled backward, unfortunately into each other's escape routes and then suddenly she was dropping to the ground and pain rocketed along her tailbone.

"I'm so sorry. Sometimes I forget to be quiet when I stalk."

There was that voice again. She opened her eyes and stared up at the figure.

He, like Hank, was blue but certainly not as hairy as the scientist. The boy before her was blue-skinned. He had raven hair that parted in the middle, both parts flopping to each side, though not far enough to cover his extremely pointy ears. His eyes were a solid, golden yellow, each eye circled by a darker shade of blue. She suddenly discovered his twitching, blue tail, ending in the shape of an arrow head.

She looked once again up to his small smile, his lips almost hiding the two, small fangs on each side of his mouth.

Another new figure.

Very intricately detailed and configured. A new voice pattern. New mannerisms and physical attributes. If she read his emotions, she was willing to bet they would be a perfect match to the twitching arrow-headed tail and the wide pale yellow eyes watching her. She was dealing with no amateur of a telepath. Even worst, if they were going through this much trouble to keep up this act, they may have discovered the true power the Shadow Healer was keeping under wraps.

But then there were thuds echoing along her fingers, knocking the ball and sockets of her knuckles against each other to a perfect beat, and she became very confused.

A heartbeat.

Not hers. But his. _His_ heartbeat.

That was impossible.

It couldn't be.

But there it was again. And again. And again.

That meant. That meant this was real. All of it. Logan. The train ride. Ororo. Dr. McCoy. The X-Men. The mansion. The bedroom. _Her _bedroom.

It was all real. And suddenly all she wanted to do in that moment was cry and laugh and skip and sob and cry out to the moon.

He was asking if she was alright, and suddenly she was noticing the heavy Eastern European accent, German she was sure.

She nodded.

"Reagan, right?" and suddenly there was that blue hand again, "Kurt Wagner, it's a pleasure to meet you."

Her hand had barely settled in his, and she was suddenly standing, his steady grip never leaving until he had brought her knuckles up to place an almost air light kiss upon them. His startling yellow eyes never left hers, gently watching her in a comforting hold she could almost feel settle on her shoulders. She was sure she had responded with "The pleasure's all mine," but in his safe gaze, she wasn't sure anymore.

"Ah, those Irish eyes. Always smiling, according to the song."

She paused, fingers actually reaching to her cheeks to confirm she was doing just so. "How did you— "

"Your name. Reagan. Quite a popular surname there, but your face, freckles, your curls were enough. Very much Western European. Judging by your scapular, probably Irish Catholic."

She was taken aback once more, unintentionally going to smooth the pad of her finger over the faded medal. "You're Catholic?"

He nodded, a peaceful look about his face. "Ja." And then the playful smile was back, "And you didn't correct me. So the Angel of New York is a Christian herself. Quite fitting."

She cringed at the name. They were all too…fantastical, feeling gaudy and heavy with excess in her mouth.

_The Shadow Healer. _

_The Angel of New York. _

They felt ridiculous.

"I didn't choose the name."

He understood profoundly, she could see it in the way he gently smiled in return, in the way he tilted his head lower to reach her gaze to pass this shared reality between them. "We rarely do."

Of course he understood. Tall, blue, tail; he was the X-Men's teleporter—Nightcrawler. A name such as that was no doubt bestowed by a third party. No self-respecting person named themselves after a worm.

"It suits you, though."

He spoke again, and she let his words roll around in her head.

_Which one_, she wanted to ask.

The fake civilian name?

The mutant calling card that spoke only of the safe half of her abilities?

Or was it the moniker NYC had branded her with, so assured they knew who she truly was?

_An angel?_ Hardly.

But she smiled in thanks to his polite kindness and turned back to the ocean stretched out before her, suddenly aching for it to swallow her whole.


	2. Blue Penciling A Governor and A Surgeon

**"I can't chat right now, Badger."**

Razor sharp air scratched noisily against nares as he exhaled shortly, pupils nearly disappearing behind his head in irritation. And for the 23rd time that day, he seriously debated his rationale in involving him.

"Don't call me that," he ground out, easing the office door closed behind him. Before him stood that 19thcentury mahogany desk, intimidating in its lonely wait for its former occupant. Whose name plaque still resided right where his motorized wheelchair had once sat.

He immediately felt he was intruding, and resorted to pacing before the cold fire place, away from the desk and its heavy memories.

**"Regardless, I'm busy. Leave a voicemail after the beep."**

His eyes rolled again.

The things he had to do as leader. He dreamed of the day these problems became someone else's.

"Stark! I just need a minute. And I don't even need you."

There was a breathy laugh on the other side. **"Iron Man is indisposed of at the moment. He's helping Fury Swifter up the Potomac. Do you know about that? Do you have the news over there in Hicksville? Or does everything just reach you 2 weeks — "**

"Stark! I just need your AI."

A half second pause to absorb the fact before, **"What?!"**

An accented voice breezed delicately in, if at all smugly.**"What can I assist you with, Captain Howlett?"**

There went his eyes again. Ever since Stark's computer had found his old enlistment forms, he couldn't get that dang glorified toaster to stop referring to his rank from WWII.

A small part of him had reveled in it, to see his past stamped and sealed permanently on a piece of paper. Kind of made the broken memories concentrate a little. But they were still just that; broken. Scattered.

"I need you to run a photo through your facial recognition software."

**"If you could just email the photo to Sir, I can have the results within the minute."**

Finally. He was getting somewhere.

"'Preciate it, JAR. And 'Logan' is just fine."

He could almost hear a bowed head.**"Of course."**

Tony Stark wasted no time in breezing back into the conversation.**"I see how it is. You're just using me for my tech. This relationship is getting pretty one-sided. I think I want a divorce."**

Shit. If he rolled his eyes one more time, they were going get permanently stuck up there. "How's clean up?" he offered by way of deviating.

A heavy sigh exploded on the other end, that reeked of 36 hours with no sleep and regulatory report forms for mistresses. He could complain about the X-Men all he wanted, but it never compared to the pencil-pushers and wig-wearers the Avengers had to appease. Sucked being national icons like that. **"I don't get paid enough for this. I need to teach my children how to clean up after themselves when they're done playing."**

The conversation turned sour with somber, and Logan found himself lowering into the dark leather arm chair. "How's Rogers?"

The tone was flippant, blasé attitude more for the comfort of the owner than the listener.**"Widow whisked him out of Providence. Her spidey senses were tingling, or whatever. Got him and his little flying friend holed up in an undisclosed location until this dust clears out."**

He nodded, letting it all sink in. Had it already been over a week since Rogers had called him on some burner phone.

Romanov's voice in the background, saying hi, asking about the team like it was just another phone call with old friends, catching up.

Rogers asking for his contacts in Fort Meade. Talking about some locked-up and retired Exo-7 Falcon suit they needed.

Then Rogers had promised their usual time the following Tuesday at McSorely's, and he hung up.

Less than 48 hours later, and he's watching a red, white and blue blob drop into the Potomac, every news anchor announcing the possible death of Captain America.

"And Barnes?" Because he had contacts in high places too.

He could almost hear the shrug over the line. **"MIA. Again. Guy makes it a living."**

"Just know. If you guys need anything— "

**"Call Richards."**

"You got it."

The AI breezed back in. **"Mr. Logan, I am sending my findings back to your servers."**

"Took a little longer than a minute."

**"I apologize for the wait. My initial sweeps found no photos in all electronic databases with a match. I then, however, ran the photo through several new programs Sir has created, one of them an automated age-regression and progression software. That was when I found a match."**

"Which one did you use?"

**"Regression."**

"What's the-"

**"I've found a 97.86% match."**

His phone beeped, an email from an Unknown sender, loaded with 48 relevant images and documents.

He opened the first one.

The name listed at the top of the obituary stopped him dead in his tracks.

No.

That. That couldn't be right. That was impossible.

But then he scrolled upon pictures; family portraits, newspaper clippings, school photos.

And there she was.

She was much younger, dimples full and body healthy.

There was no way. Of all people to come to his rescue.

"Is this—?"

**"I've sent all pertinent files and records to your servers," **the AI cut in.

"Thanks JARVIS."

**"My pleasure."**

**"Getting dirt on another ne'er-do-well?" **Stark chimed in.

"Something like that."

**"Let me know how that works out. Or don't. I don't care. Beep."**

* * *

"You lied!

Scott was striding to her now at full speed down the hallway, watching as the startled recruit turned to him. He watched large eyes lock on his, the fluidity with which her left index slid down her right palm only catching his eyes. Until he was lifting and slamming her against the wall by her shoulders, did his mind finally piece together what he had just watched.

She had been signing.

Her reflection glinted in ruby red glasses, stinging erupting where her head had clapped against the wall. As she tried desperately to remember the list of names Kurt had excitedly rhymed off to her earlier.

_Scott, _she was sure.

He snarled up at her. "You're somehow the Carvalho's dead kid, and you didn't think of telling us?!"

Her stomach dropped down to her dangling feet, as she blinked back the nausea crawling out her throat.

_How did he find out? How did he know?_

"Do you know what'd happen if your parents, if the _media_, found out we took you in!? They'd castrate us before sticking our heads on pikes and setting them out on 9th! You're painting a giant target on all of our asses! You're putting all of our lives at risk!"

"Scott, I didn't— "

He pulled back only to shove her against the wall once more. "Didn't _what _!? Didn't think!? Didn't care!? That seems pretty damn accurate!"

"Summers!"

She was startled for the second time that day, around these people whose indoor voices were battle-cry volume.

Logan was beside them in an instant, ripping away Scott like he weighed nothing. She dropped to the ground, the impact rattling her bones through her heels, shaking her already frayed nerves. She heard the distant sound of echoing metal.

Last time she had heard that, there were metal spikes coming out of Logan's knuckles.

She heard Scott's voice first. "You're seriously protecting her!?"

It was loud, ragged like it had been cut with a rusted, dull knife. There was a desperation beneath it all, she didn't know if Logan heard. A cry of fear. She didn't chance a look at him, but she knew his body would be steeped in deep and rich greens. She could almost taste it on her tongue, felt it ghost at her fingertips like mist.

His voice was back tapping at her ear again, dragging her back in the present. Tone hard and resentful and spiteful. "But then again, why am I not surprised."

Logan's snarl came second.

And then she heard a third voice join them."Logan!"

And a fourth. "Scott!"

And then a fifth. "Reagan!"

She turned to find Kurt coming to a crouch beside her, a red head going to stand beside Scott, hands almost pulling him back, Dr. McCoy coming to stand with arms outstretched between them.

"What's going on?" Hank demanded of them.

"Why don't you ask Reagan?" Scott snarled, trying to pull out of the woman's grasp. He turned to her, and in that moment, she had never been more curious to see what lay behind his ruby glasses. "Or should we even call you that?"

Kurt peered over at him in utter confusion. "What?"

Summers nodded to her. "Her name's not Reagan. It's Maebh Carvalho. The kid of the world's two most prominent anti-mutant activists!"

The hallways fell deafly silent, the only sound the prattling rain drops hitting the glass window illuminating them. Four pairs of eyes turned to look at her in varying degrees of confusion, surprise, anger and pity. Logan still kept his eyeslocked on Scott.

Jean was the first to speak up. "You're Governor Raul and Dr. Alicia Carvalho's daughter?"

Hank was shaking his head, defensive stance between the two only slightly wavering. "That's impossible. Their daughter and son are dead. Have been for years now."

Kurt turned to her, expectant. "Reagan?"

She bowed her head.

She felt like vomiting all over the carpeting.

This was it.

The feeling she had had waking up in the bedroom. Thinking that things like this only happened in fairy tales. That once they found out who she was, what she was, they wouldn't want her anymore. That the 'X' came with conditions.

Yeah, it was back. And slapping her in the face, leaving it stinging.

It left her reeling and nauseous, and wishing for the quick and clean finality of a poisoned apple.

But no. This moment was going to drag and let her idle in the bed she made.

Her next words were the second most painful things she had ever experienced.

"He's right."

The red head wasn't convinced, certain of the thousands of the news coverage stories she had watched. "How? You died. You _drowned_."

She nodded. Damn, it felt like glass was carving away at her throat. "I did. Put my body underneath enough stress to kick start my powers. Saved my life."

"Maebh Carvalho was born mute, though."

Oh gosh, and then there was _that_secret.

A secret she didn't entirely understand herself.

"I was. I _am_. I'm still— "

Scott didn't want explanations. "She could be working for her parents, feeding them intel on the nation's most wanted mutant vigilante group!"he called out.

All were slightly spooked at the darkness that slipped into their recruit's voice as she glared daringly back at him. "Trust me, I'm not."

"Scott, I picked her up off the streets! She didn't have a home before this!" Logan defended.

She knew he didn't mean ill at all, but his words sent a punch to her gut, stole her breath from her lungs. Why, though? Because she had known all along? But once someone else said it, admitted it, out loud; then it made it real?

Scott waved his arms in exasperation. "And who's to say that wasn't all an act?!"

Dr. McCoy turned, expression grave. "Given the state she was found in, I find that theory very unlikely, Scott."

"Regardless. She can't be trusted. She's gotta go."

Kurt spoke up, still crouched on her level, but felt large, as he tightened defensively beside her. "If she goes, then I guess I'm leaving too."

Scott turned to him, "Kurt, stay out of this."

"Why? If we're judging team status on our parents, then I'd be the first to go. Who knows, maybe Mystique or Azazel will take me back."

The names she wasn't familiar with. Calling cards by the sound of them. But the spite Kurt threw them with; there was a strained relation there. Anger. Resentment. She could taste their colors on her tongue.

The red head stepped in, hand on Scott's shoulder forcefully pulling him away, back down the hallway he had been stomping about minutes before, printed results from Stark Industries still clutched in his hands.

Thanks to Forge's infiltrating program he had pilfered.

He had been suspicious of the new recruit from the beginning.

_Jean_, maybe.

She thinks that's the red head's name.

"Come on, Scott. Let's go cool down before you say something you're going to regret."

Jean (hopefully) lead a reluctant Scott back down the hallway, throwing Reagan an apologetic look over her shoulder.

Logan remained tense until the two disappeared around the corner, and he could hear them head down the opposite stairway.

He turned behind him to the sound of sniffling.

"I'm so sorry."

Reagan was still sitting on the ground, hands limp in her lap, shoulders slumped.

Kurt was crouching back down, dipping his head to try and meet her eyes. "Hey— "

She shook her head, voice wet and thick. "I'm so sorry to be causing so much trouble. I'm so sorry I kept it from you. I shouldn't have done that, especially from you guys. You've been so kind and giving to me since the moment I got here— "

Kurt put both hands on her shoulders. "There's nothing to apologize for. We didn't ask, so there was no reason for you to explain."

"Scott can overreact sometimes, but it's not— "

"Guys! Guys! You're never going to believe this!"

All eyes met a frazzled Kitty rushing towards them. "There's a Sentinel loose in the city!"

Hank appeared astonished, "What!?"

She sprinted up to Logan, handing him blown up footage hot off hacked security cameras, watching with interest as Kurt was helping the new recruit up from the ground. "Reports are coming in real-time. He's making a mess of Parkside."

Logan nodded. "Alright, suit up guys. Forge, grab Jean and Scott from outside and fill them in. Hangar in 10."

He turned back to her, watching as she was composing and already moving to follow them. He put his hand out. "Kid, I need you stay here, ok. We'll be back in little while. Forge'll be here if you need anything."

He turned and headed for the hangar without another word.

* * *

"No."

She pointed at her reflection in the clean metal paneling of the one of many supply closets scattered about the institute.

It had been the one Dr. McCoy had taken her to that morning in search of clothes that would fit. Which had ended up being a bunch of sweatpants, hoodies and t shirts. But amongst the crates were words like **UNIFORMS**and **SPARE TR. SUITS **and **MISC. JACKETS**, things like boots and survival kits and duffel bags peeking out of boxes.

And there she found herself, pacing back and forth along the narrow path between boxes, talking herself out of something, deep down inside, she felt she needed to do.

"He told you to stay here. He ordered you to."

That's right. He did.

If Logan thought they were going to be fine, then they were going to be fine.

So why did she feel dread squeezing her stomach for all it was worth?

"He's your leader, now. That's a thing. You take orders from him now."

That's right!

He _is _your leader now!

No more of this lone wolf, it's-me-against-the-world angst. She was a member of a team. Dynamic of a team was to work together under a leader.

Whether she liked his orders or not, she listened to him.

"They'll be fine. The X-Men have gone up against worst."

Another very good point.

They _have_. With less members.

"So then why do I feel…"

Scared.

Afraid.

Worried.

Nervous.

Anxious.

And all over people she'd just met.

Some she didn't really know.

She glanced back at the boxes, but immediately averted her attention to the wall.

"No. Nope. Nopitty-nope. You're staying here and that's final."

* * *

Smoke rose with a vengeance from scrambled cars, metal stretched and scorched. Deep scratches at the earth marred the pavement, some even gaining tenacity to climb the walls of neighboring buildings. Sheets of road lay scattered in disheveled pieces, gathering in deep pockets of the ground formed by the haunted pounding of heavy, metal feet.

But what bothered Wolverine the most had the feral mutant throwing a fearful, hesitated glance back at the pedestrians who had gotten caught within the conflict, huddling ever so violently together by what remained of a small, coffee shop.

The Sentinel was smart.

It had known to attack the Parkside Housing Project, most of the neighborhood occupied by mutants who had been relocated shortly after the Mutant Housing Bill was passed, allowing hotels and apartment buildings to place mutant restriction policies in their rooms.

Mutants all across New York were, within hours of the passing of the bill, thrown mercilessly out onto the streets.

Mutants flocked to neighborhoods with ample zombie property, and found refuge amongst each other.

The former Weapon-X could only watch as Summers was blasted clear from his stance before the robotic beast, sailing limply through the air and landing with a crunch against a Mazda, smoke still billowing from his freshly activated eyes.

It was playing with them. Original programming had been shut off, the Trask's perfect little project now focused on making as much of a mess of the neighborhood as it could, focused only partially on the annoying humans below.

He knew that whatever masterful hold was on the Sentinel was not one to take lightly.

Someone else was controlling it.

Time finally balanced around him, the screeching sounds of the large city and muffled screams of terror from the pedestrians behind him beginning to ring mercilessly in his ear as he turned back up to the towering Sentinel.

Its head stiffly twisted from its glare on the unconscious Cyclops, laying still on the roof of the car, to look at the X-Men leader.

"Mutant detected," its mechanical voice decreed, its arm simultaneously rising to alignment with the still dazed Wolverine.

He watched as the orb within its palm began to burn with a familiar purple. Instincts kicked in, and Wolverine leapt from his spot, tumbling and rolling unsteadily. It sent an ear-piercing ringing bounding across his head as it imploded with the asphalt, debris flying, sending the group of huddled mutants into another disorderly frenzy.

He listened carefully as strings of affirming confirmations trickled through his ear piece, mistakenly believing that the alloy titan before him still contained its rather slow processing.

"Zone A is cleared out," Nightcrawler sounded.

"Zone B as well," Storm announced.

And before he could have a chance for his heightened senses to assess the situation and react, he felt his whole vision lighten with the Sentinel's blast, feeling a wrenching, burning pain erupt all along his chest, and his body go airborne.

The blinding burn that scorched across his ribs and upper abdomen were enough to vaguely cover his rather ungraceful plunge in the asphalt, but his now throbbing spine was indication enough that his healing factor was working on over drive.

His ringing ears could pick up the faint calls of his fast approaching teammates behind him, just as his blurry vision began refocusing on the encroaching Sentinel. He could vaguely hear Kitty calling out his name and Jean yelling out to Beast to help her with Scott, who Logan was already regretting not breaking the fall for. Scott wasn't immune to injury. Wolverine could care less what he put his body through.

Logan tried to lift himself up from the ground, but his arm wasn't able to carry his dead weight and he collapsed back to the pavement, half-listening as Iceman and Kurt began calling out to the distressed group of citizens while Shadowcat's footsteps were steadily growing closer.

Wolverine turned his head up to the Sentinel, his shadow now completely covering the X- Men leader, who felt his stomach catch in his throat as the robot slowly inched his head in a circle, his eyes igniting as it registered the fast approaching band of new mutants.

"No," Wolverine whispered, watching as the Sentinel raised both hands, palms igniting, directing them on the group of huddled pedestrians, Iceman and Nightcrawler's backs to the threat.

"Guys!" Wolverine called out hoarsely, neither one of them catching their leader's warning.

While the adults of the cluster had their eyes trained on the two X-Men, watching them as they gestured toward subway staircases and restaurant basements, a small girl suddenly turned to the huge robot before the group, letting out an ear-piercing shriek as her small eyes settled on his glowing hands.

And time seemed to stop for Wolverine, as he watched in a haze as his young teammates turned, wide-eyed behind them, throwing each other a quick glance of fear as they turned back to the innocents, their mouths now opening in showers of frantic screams. Feet began pounding and faces became hysterically anxious as they prepared themselves to run.

Suddenly, he twisted his gaze beside him, a small corner of his eye abruptly stirring with a flash of white light.

He'd recognize that light anywhere.

"Halt, mutant," came only seconds later, mechanical palm raising to meet the levitating mutant dead on, as mechanics whirred and gears grinded to fully face them.

The Shadow Healer stared down the blaster, its palm began to pulse its infamous purple shade, the whirs of its blaster's ignition exploding in their ears.

Jean and Beast paused in shouldering Cyclops from the dismantled car, Nightcrawler and Iceman turned from the fleeing crowd and Shadowcat peered up from her crouch beside Wolverine, Storm feet behind her.

All staring at the standoff ensuing between their new recruit and an MRD weapon that was believed to be long dismantled.

In one fluid motion, both arms were raised and directed at the activated blaster.

The air popped with ignition, inches before her hands sparking into a burning white light, an energy surge soon taking form.

It went scorching in a stream through the Sentinel's blaster.

The stream disappeared, the air cooled, and the shattered glass of the weapon's bulbs went crashing to the ground.

The robotic titan wasted no time in raising its other arm, already activating it before it left its side.

The Shadow Healer was faster still, levitating body burning an ever brighter hue, limbs and edges indistinguishable beneath the light, a construct almost as bright as her materializing just in time to block the blast.

The X-Men shielded their eyes from the collision of the two energies, the air around them heavy with the scent of something burning, exploding with sound.

It died down, and the Wolverine was the first to peer back up. The Sentinel's blast was finished, systems were rebooting, and gears were rerouting remaining power for another discharge.

But the glowing form above his head had other plans in store. He watched a movement of her upper body, the shield construct simultaneously pulling apart.

Separating into three smaller constructs.

To Wolverine's interest, shaped roughly like stars.

The air suddenly stilled.

Not a movement disrupted the atmosphere.

Not a sound pierced the silence.

All was calm. All was bright.

Wolverine could hear, and smell, and feel the heat radiating dozens of feet above him from a mutant he had thought only to be a healer.

He watched as two constructs went spiraling, straight towards the Sentinel's face, both exploding on impact.

The titan reeled back unbalanced on its heel. It paused to recalibrate its equilibrium, smoke clearing to reveal two holes where its optics had been.

There was movement again above him.

The last projection was suddenly curving low and then up, the bright light sawing cleanly through the giant's wrist and sending its hand free falling towards the ground below.

The giant's movements were stiff and haphazard, its limbs skittering in an attempt to regain programming.

But Bolivar Trask's creation didn't stand a chance.

With a shout that startled them all, an arc of pure, blinding light surged out from her, scorching through the Sentinel's chest, the scattered chorus of sparks from its damaged internal wiring resonating victoriously across the block.

The neighborhood fell into silence again.

And then suddenly, it had ended.

The flying mutant watched as the purple glow of the online Sentinel turned off, as the now lifeless husk finally began its backward fall to the ground.

The crash was deafening, the shockwave whipping at their hair and pulling at their uniforms.

It echoed across the now quiet night, finite in its volume.

He threw Shadowcat a grateful look as she helped him off of the asphalt. He did a quick assessment of his team, searching for Scott. He found him draped around Jean and Hank, breathing heavily with his focus on the ground. But a tight smile and nod from Jean reassured him that, for the time being, Cyclops was ok.

And in the middle of a wrecked and quiet Parkside, the X-Men watched with slack jaws and wide eyes as the bright mass slowly lowered to the ground, its human characteristics becoming more visible. He was frustrated that she had disobeyed him and had participated in the field without training, but his voice betrayed his posture, just taste of fondness leaking out. "I thought I told you to stay at the institute."

The light had faded to a dim outer glow, eventually petering out completely, leaving just a small young woman in an X-Men sweat suit, drowning in one of Storm's old capes.

He could barely make out her face beneath its hood, but what he could see was wide and taut as it stared down at her hands.

Her eyes glanced warily at them as if ready for them to explode right before her.

He tried again, softer this time. "Kid, you ok?"

She turned to him, spooked as if she hadn't heard him before. She was nodding frantically at him. She was out of breath when she finally spoke. "Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Just a little. Wind-whipped."

He smiled down at her, arms crossed fondly across his chest. "Did you know you could do that?"

He chuckled when she turned back up to him, laughing from waning adrenaline, grinning from ear to ear. "No! Forget that whole light show; I didn't even know I could _fly_that fast! I made it from the mansion in like, what, 15 minutes!? That's like…I can't actually do math right now, but that's really fast!" she exclaimed.

The X-Men were all smiling now, from exhaustion, from a crisis averted, and from a young teenager just discovering the incredible potential that lay within her powers.

"Have you never used your powers before?" he asked.

She shrugged, still smiling and still trying to catch her breath. "The healing stuff. Sure. But _that_whole scene just now. I knew I could _do_it. I could always feel it. But I never did it. That was. Wow. That was nuts!"

She turned to Storm, suddenly. "Also, really sorry about borrowing your cape. I needed something to hide in, because your _giant mansion full of vigilantes_doesn't have a single mask. What kind of superheroes are you?" she asked, turning to the rest of the group.

Iceman threw up a tired hang loose sign. "The kind too cool for secret identities."

"It's alright. I'm glad it's being put to good use," Storm replied fondly.

Jean nodded. "It actually looks fitting on you, Reagan. Maybe a little hemming."

The Shadow Healer peered down at herself, twisting to try and take in the entirety of her body. "You think?" she asked, twirling uncertainly for her team.

And in that moment, in baggy sweat pants, a hoodie that hung on her like a dress and a cape that seemed to swallow her hole, draped along the ground, the X-Men saw it.

In that fantastical, existential moment, they were looking at a heroine.

Even if she couldn't see it yet.

* * *

The city released a breath. The air, poised before on an inhale, released. The sidewalks and the buildings still stuttered with raw adrenaline, nerves uncoiling, albeit slowly.

The crisis was averted. The city was safe once more, as the night preceded around it, untouched. Two bodies were tucked away on apartment rooftop in its shadows.

Bags were strewn out alongside them, brimming with week old clothes, empty water bottles and cartridges, granola bar wrappers and blood stains. Two return tickets from Blackwater, New Jersey sticking out of a dirtied backpack, a prop for his elbow as he peered through his military grade binoculars.

"Well, damn."

He turned to the red head beside him, who was swiping through readings pulled from footage taken not just seconds ago, when the fate of the city tipped precariously over a sharpened edge.

'"Well damn'? That's all you have to say is 'Well, damn'? Did you see what I just saw!? That deserved a what in the absolute fuster cluck was that!?"

She snorted beside him, the corner of her mouth tipping upward ever so slightly. "Nothing surprises me anymore."

He gave another cursory glance through the binoculars, though his world-renowned vision picked out even more details than the ones they were feeding him, before setting them down and turning to his partner. "What the hell are we supposed to tell Stark?"

Natasha Romanov gave a shrug to Clint Barton, closing up the Stark Pad and stuffing it in her already full knapsack. "Obviously something a lot different than what we put in the report for Fury. Keep details focused on the Sentinel; operated off of an untraceable frequency, Trask's labs are still squeaky clean, looked like a show more than anything."

Without another word, they were silently and methodically packing up their belongings. Equipment was efficiently disassembled and tucked away, surfaces were dusted and cleaned of prints. It was a process the former SHIELD agents had done a million times before.

Hawkeye waited a whole 4 seconds, to the Black Widow's amusement, before voicing his concern for the 12thtime that night. "I got a bad feeling about this whole double-crossing business."

She shrugged again. Double-crossing along sticky webs was what the Widow had been bred to do. It was second nature. "We only have to do it this one time before she signs on with us, and Stark sticks the princess in an untouchable ivory tower."

"Away from SHIELD."

She nodded. "Away from SHIELD."

He blew a hot breath through his cheeks. "Well, damn."

She was slipping bags over her shoulder, texting away to an untraceable number for a ride at a rendezvous point, her teammate still trying to stuff down what she bet were souvenirs from Dubai he hadn't unpacked yet.

The archer had been knee-deep undercover, infiltrating an illegal arms-dealing ring, when his SHIELD issued tech had all but pulled a Mission Impossible self-destruction on him. He had put his neck out to make an untraced call back to headquarters, only to find all emergency lines scrubbed from existence and handlers' numbers disconnected. In the end, all it had earned him was a hit to the head, and 2 hours later, chained to a chair in an abandoned warehouse, the run-of-the-mill torture weapons spread out to the side and a bunch of pissed off criminals.

Cue the clandestine, bullets-soaring, hellfire-raining entrance of one Natasha Romanov and one Phil Coulson.

Who was supposed to be dead.

Whom he promptly kicked in the balls once he was free.

And stomped on his foot.

And then immediately hugged.

And to Coulson's embarrassment, kissed.

10 sketchy car swaps later, and a ride from hell on a puddle jumper from the '80s finally found them back on US soil, and somehow getting more orders from a guy who was technically dead, head of an organization that was pretty much road kill, all thanks to some Nazi-bred illuminate group from the '40s.

Disclosed orders: to observe an online Sentinel. Source: chatter from its unknown master picked up before SHIELD went up in smoke.

Undisclosed orders: to pull data on the Shadow Healer, rumored to have been picked up by the X-Men quite recently, for SHIELD intel. Source: unknown.

"Thought that phrase wasn't good enough."

"It isn't but…Nat," he said, arms stretching out to the city before him. "_Nat_. The readings we just got."

She sighed. "I know."

This just opened a whole other can of worms none of them were apt at swallowing at that moment.

Clint was still reeling. "The power that girl's packing."

She gave him a hand, hefting the fully loaded archer to his feet. "I know."

They kept their bodies crouched to the rooftop, slipping across to the fire escape, and made their way quietly down to the street.

"Damn," Clint whispered again, the two falling into an eased pace beside each other, eyes tracking the night life around them with practiced ease.

Natasha sighed again. "I know."

* * *

Tired sighs were expelled and weighted duffels were plopped on the ground, both noises echoing across the cold and dark empty floor.

She muttered something in the dark, her response a few of the dimmer lights in the large communal kitchen turned on. He bounced up onto the countertop, catching the jar of peanut butter and spoon she tossed blindly over her shoulder as she perused the stocked cabinets.

Both heads turned to the sound of a voice filtering out from the opening doors of the elevator behind them. "Alright, super spies. Spill the tea."

Clint shrugged, roughly swallowing down the glop of peanut butter in his throat. "She _exists_."

Tony exhaled, stained black undershirt expanding, and rolled his eyes, slipping behind Natasha on route to the coffee machine. "So urban legend's now a nonfiction piece. Good start," he drawled sarcastically.

"Healing abilities weren't confirmed," Natasha noted, leading the fridge door close with her shoulder. On the countertop she deposited her stockpile of yogurt cups, dried fruit bags, and leftover spaghetti.

"Ok. Not ideal," Tony admitted beneath a poorly concealed yawn. "But we've got other sources to confirm that."

"She's gifted," Clint piped up.

Tony snorted. "No shit, Sherlock."

"No, I don't think you get it," Natasha interjected, nodding to her former SHIELD partner, "Show him the specs."

Tony turned just in time to catch the Stark Pad Clint tossed to him. He threw the archer a death glare, before scanning the bright screen. "These aren't - _woah_."

"Yeah."

"Holy shit," Tony whispered to himself. He couldn't believe what he was looking at. You'd think after years of working with the likes of the walking electrical conductor with golden hair, Captain 70 Year Suspended Animation Champion, and the Jolly Green Giant, he'd be more used to see the extraordinary in ordinary humans.

And yet here he was standing in the Avenger's Tower's 23rdfloor kitchen, two world renowned assassins flanking his sides. One sucking down peanut butter like it was crack, the other popping strawberries in her mouth while simultaneously pulling out knives from her beneath her suit, dropping them on his clean island - _and__nope, he did not know you could keep a knife there _– looking at a floating mass on his screen.

Whose core temperature was reaching over 6000K.

Undergoing constant nuclear fusion like it was going out of style.

Lighting up his stellar energy readings like a Christmas tree on Red Bull.

"This chick. _This _is the Shadow Healer!?"

"Yep," Clint responded, popping the 'p.'

"But she's—"

"Got powers emitting energy that supersedes any artificial weaponry on Earth? Yeah. We know," Natasha replied, extremely interested in a particular spot of blood on the hilt of one of her daggers. Tony shuddered to himself.

"Where did you dig this freak up, Badger?" he asked himself.

Natasha then spoke up, "Based on the files you scavenged, does it look like Fury had even an inkling that she could do. You know. All that?"

Tony shook his head, eyes still watching the readings filtering across the old video feed. "No. All he filed were rumors on her healing touch or whatever. Sent out one ground team for recon months back, but the data they pulled doesn't even _touch_this."

Tony raised his head at the sound of a hard slap, catching just in time Clint pulling away his hand from the bowl of fruit, looking wounded, Natasha barely batting an eye at him. "We think she can turn the energy readings on and off. We were able to ping them briefly while she was using them, but they disappeared just as quickly," Clint informed, rubbing delicately at his hurting knuckles.

Tony was surprised she hadn't used the open, exposed and easily accessible knives surrounding her to warn the archer.

"So we're thinking Fury's in the dark because he never caught her when she was…glowing."

Natasha nodded. "That's our best guest."

"And will he _still _be in the dark?"

Clint gave him a goofy thumbs up, before swinging his body off the counter, straight for the cereal cabinet. "Report we're sending him gives a rough sketch of some possible illumination capabilities, but nothing noteworthy. Lucky SHIELD scattered underground so no one can fact check us."

"Any bystanders?"

"13. They're not going to talk."

That didn't sound sketchy in the slightest.

"Any possibility footage's going to make its rounds online?"

"Fat chance," he replied, grabbing a fistful of some chocolate and peanut butter puff balls, the rest warbled between chews. "Frequency disrupter's got a 4-mile radius. Anything outside that zone would've captured grainy feed that won't really stick anywhere."

"That's my good little assassins."

"Woof," Natasha drawled.

"How's Rogers?"

Both assassins paused; Clint in the stuffing of his face, Natasha in her knife-coddling ministrations.

"So. That's why we're here," she finally answered.

Damn he hated pauses.

"Wasn't to see my beautiful face, Honey?"

"Rogers's got appendicitis."

That. He wasn't expecting. "I'm sorry. What?"

"Was holed up with him and Sam at one of Clint's safe houses. Started complaining about a pain."

He scoffed, sliding the Stark Pad on the counter. "Well, yeah. He's more holes right now than Super Soldier."

The former Russian spy shook her head. "Not near any of the gunshot wounds. Sam says its appendicitis. Fever's spiking."

"He's got the serum."

"It can't magically grow him a new appendix."

Tony roughly ran his fingers through his hair. "Well. Shit."

Clint pointed to himself, other arm deep in the fast emptying cereal box. "My thoughts exactly."

"We need the girl," Nat added. Like she was just asking for something to be added to the weekly shopping list.

"Girl. You mean _this _girl?" Tony exclaimed, pointing at the Pad. "And how the hell do you plan on doing that?"

Clint smiled smugly. "We don't keep you around just for looks."

The Manhattan-born billionaire reflected on that comment for a second, eyes widening when he realized just what the stupid spies were implying. "Oh hell no. I am not calling Badger for one of his little monsters. You want the mutant; you call him yourself."

And even as he said it, he knew he had already been signed up for the job.

Man did he hate talking to that over-stuffed, rabid woodland creature.

Dude had human-decency issues.

"Tony, we _need _her."

"_You _want her, or Fury does?"

"Both. We're just telling Fury the X-Men gave us a hard and inarguable 'no.' Given his history with Logan, he's not about to go convincing the Wolverine himself."

"I've got like a thousand of the world's best doctors on speed dial."

Natasha almost looked apologetic. Funny how she wasn't the one walking up to be strangled by Edward Scissorhands incarnate. "He can't go back into surgery, Tony. We need something noninvasive. _Someone _noninvasive. And we need them now. Would take too long to try and clear your guys on retainer. We don't know whose Hydra."

He sighed.

It was useless. He knew it too.

"So you need her here," he admitted with defeat.

Clint sucked a whistle of air through clenched teeth. "Well. No. See. That's our _other _little problem."

"_Yes_…" Stark prodded.

Clint still held that tight expression as he turned to Natasha. Pleadingly.

_Way to be a man, Barton, _Stark thought.

"Sam needed equipment. Clint's place wasn't stocked. So we took Steve to Blackwater," Natasha finally answered.

Ah hell, no.

Where was the alcohol? Pepper better not have hid the keys to the liquor cabinets again.

He groaned, dramatically dragging a hand down his face, leaving trails of grease from his fingers along his cheeks. "Please tell me there's another poor, unfortunate hell hole called Blackwater out there."

Clint gave a cheeky grin, that bastard. "Nope. Only one."

"You took him to a SHIELD site!? In Jersey?!"

Natasha let her spoon dance between her fingertips. "Technically, SHIELD doesn't exist anymore." Like that made it any better.

"It's an unregistered site. It's clean. And we got clean people patrolling the area," Clint supplied.

No. That _still _didn't make it ok. "Do you know how dumb of a move that was!? Was the crumbling Triskelion and falling Helicarriers not enough to sear that into your brain!?"

Clint threw his hands up in a _whaddya gonna do _gesture. "We had one unmarked Quinjet low on fuel and a really heavy Super Soldier we had to sneak out of Providence. The odds weren't really in our favor."

"Tony." The billionaire turned uncertainly to the Black Widow's interestingly concerned tone, "He's in bad shape. Sam needed supplies. We moved him too soon from the hospital."

Well…"Shit."

The spies remained silent as they watched and waited for Tony Stark to process all they had just given him. Even for 2 am in the morning, low on caffeine, neither were surprised when he turned back to them, up to speed and ready to do some damage.

"Do you know how hard it'll be to convince Badger to let one of his own into a SHIELD compound? In light of what just happened? And after I tell him Fury's got his eyes on her?"

Natasha gave that corner smirk, just shy of a Cheshire grin, "If anyone can sweet talk him, it's you, Iron Man."

He blew a breath out. "Shit."

"Choose a different word," Natasha replied casually.

"Damn."

Clint shook his head. "I already called that one."

He sighed again. "Anything else you moochers want."

"When Logan agrees, a cleared area he can land the Blackbird. She's gotta come in low, clean and solo. Maybe a convenient lapse in video feed in a few hallways. Banner too."

He cocked an eyebrow at her. "_When _? Not _if _?"

She chewed through another strawberry. "He may hate you, but he's got a soft spot for Steve."

_Steve. _

The man of the hour.

The perpetrator of the entirety of this shit show.

That he was left cleaning up.

Because Rogers was all. Holey.

And now, apparently, on the brink of going septic.

"How long does Sam think Rogers's got?" Stark asked.

She tried to look calm about her following words, lackadaisically twirling her spoon around the yogurt cup. But he saw right through it. "Serum's holding off some of the effects, but it's already working overtime with the rest of him. His body's exhausted. So not long. A week maybe. Tops."

He scrubbed another hand through his hair. "Dammit, Rogers."

Guess this had to be done. "Yeah. Alright. Yeah. I'll call him now. Prepare the hard stuff, Jar."

**"I'll keep it at the ready, Sir."**

Clint raised his hand excitedly. "Hey. Can I get in on that?"

* * *

**"So, Richards didn't pan out."**

Was he never going to catch a break?

He must've sounded his frustration aloud, because Stark was back on his ass within seconds.

**"Oh come on, Badger. You got to play around with my cool toys, now I want to see yours."**

That's it. He was done.

He dealt with enough kids parading as adults on a daily basis. He didn't need an even bigger one phone calling him after he had already pulled a beer from the fridge, on his way to settle into the outdoor seating area for the chilled evening.

He regretted asking it the moment the words left his mouth. "What do you need?"

**"Well, if we're being frank, Rogers needs to stop trying to tackle every immoral cooperation in the world."**

He sighed. Aloud again, he thinks. "The _real _issue, Stark."

**"Rogers needs medical help we can't give him. Few little birdies told me your new compatriot has a lot of experience in that field."**

He snarled, sliding the storm door shut forcefully behind him. "You keeping tabs on me n' my team, tin can!?"

That's all he needed. The kid had been with them for what, less than 24 hours? And she already had those NYC lackeys hot on her tail.

**"Technically SHIELD is. And I'm keeping tabs on them. Found her file in their backlogs."**

He paused briefly in his crouch into the wicker couch at Stark's words. "Anything interesting?"

**"In their files; nothing. Now mine are a whole different story. Did you know your little glow stick is giving off solar flares like it's B.O.?"**

Shit.

Double freakin' shit.

Hank's findings had been by chance. The scientist had been sure of that. But he warned anyone looking hard enough, waiting hard enough, might know how much energy her body was storing. And based off of tonight's adventure, she could wield it as well.

For as obnoxious and obtuse as Stark could be, he sometimes had his insightful moments. Like this one, when he seemed to be able to pick out the concern from the silence filtering through from the other line. **"Logan? JARVIS is putting every lockdown protocol on her files as we speak. No one is getting to them."**

He felt a little bit better about that. But that didn't make the issue disappear. "What's Fury want with her?" he asked, taking a long pull from his bottle while Stark replied with, **"Same as us. Looking for someone to help Rogers."**

Fury had gotten a little more people-friendly over the years. Wrangling a bunch of toddlers jacked up on gamma radiation and electricity into saving the world, simultaneously smiling for the camera and telling the 7 billion people behind the lens that SHIELD had the public's best interest at heart, humbles a guy.

But a man doesn't lose his scent for opportunities benefitting of him and his agenda. Ulterior motives are a habit no man breaks.

Not even the esteemed Nicholas J. Fury.

And he had dealt with the spy too many times to forget how those motives can wreck another's life.

Getting the kid to heal Rogers would just be the start.

Fury'd have her number on speed dial then.

Maybe the President needed saving one say. From a cold. The plague. Strep throat. Whatever.

And that was all well and good.

Until she'd find out later the President had been on the fence about severing ties with a foreign nation, whatever their reasons were. And that _those_severed ties would result in strained international relations, making the jobs of every single SHIELD spy infesting that nation's government all the more difficult.

And her healing the President; that was a trade-off.

A nice ol' pat on the back, a compelling incentive to do _the right thing. _

Fury's way of scratching the President's back.

"And he thinks she can do it?"

**"He doesn't know. The files he's got on her, Logan-the pirate knows next to jack about her. My guess is he's heard the rumors just like everybody else, and he wants to see what she can do."**

Rumors were what that espionage agency lived off of.

"And put her on his payroll," Logan surmised cynically.

**"Probably."**

He sighed again.

This was the last time he was taking another mutant in.

He was done.

If Chuck wanted more, he'd have to wake up from the coma himself and deal with this bullshit.

He just wanted to finish his beer.

"He's not laying a finger on her, Stark. Over my dead body."

**"Hey, no one's making her sign the dotted line. Trust me, I'm still in the process of burning Barton and Romanov's employee badges."**

He wanted to tell the billionaire that Hydra kind of already did that for him.

But it was still a sore subject.

And he didn't need another dose of Stark's deflecting sarcasm in that present moment.

Or ever again, for that matter.

"So this has to stay off their radar," he reiterated.

He could hear the hesitancy when Stark finally answered.

He hated pauses.

**"Might be a little easier said than done."**

What the hell did that mean?

If he was at Stark Industries, what was the problem?

Unless… "They're keeping him on site, aren't they?"

**"Don't ever let 'em tell you you're dumb, Badger."**

This day just kept getting better and better.

"There're not all burned to ground?" he said, exasperation in no way hiding.

He could hear the shrug over the phone. **"Apparently he was mid-building one off the books when shit turned sideways."**

"You can't move him?"

**"Didn't Fury give you the whole We Got Eyes Everywhere lecture?"**

He didn't care where Fury was growing his second eye, if Stark wanted her, they were going to make sure Fury and Hill and the lot of them were blind to it all.

**"He's in bad shape, Logan. Widow doesn't want to move him."**

That made the bottle halfway to his lips stop short.

Last he'd heard bullets were out, holes were closed up and Rogers was talking. He wasn't leaping from Quinjets in a single bound just yet, but he was out of the woods.

The Serum would take care of that in a week or so.

But the slight hint of worry in his Stark's voice made him pause.

"The fight that bad?"

Another pause.

**"Who's to say."**

Too vague.

Code for _something just changed and I don't know who's listening in. _

He nodded his head.

Great. Here he went again, doing something he knew he was going to regret offering.

"Alright. Your people talk to my people?"

AKA: Forge and JARVIS were about to play a little game of advanced, coding racket ball across a few databases.

Divide up the info, mix up the paper trail a bit.

He suddenly remembered they were low on coffee.

Forge would need it.

**"You the best, Badger. See you on the flip side."**


End file.
